In communications infrastructure installations, a variety of communications devices can be used for switching and connecting communications signal transmission paths in a communications network. Some such communications devices are installed in one or more equipment racks to permit organized, high-density installations to be achieved in limited space available for equipment.
Installing a large number of connections in an equipment rack is efficient with respect to floor space, but places a premium on the ability to manage and maintain the communications cables leading to and away from these equipment racks. Further, due to the increasing demand for communications system capacity, it is desirable to increase the density of connections within a given space that can be achieved.
Network management systems (NMS) are typically aware of logical communication links that exist in a communications network, but typically do not have information about the specific physical layer media (e.g., the communications devices, cables, couplers, etc.) that are used to implement the logical communication links. Indeed, NMS systems typically do not have the ability to display or otherwise provide information about how logical communication links are implemented at the physical layer level.